


Cliched As Hell

by ThineRiddler



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, YOLO, all my otps, cliches, i dont know the new trolls enough to use them in here, im just tagging everyone, sorta - Freeform, this is probably going to end up in a disaster
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 19:48:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8026684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThineRiddler/pseuds/ThineRiddler
Summary: What better cliche than a college au with a theatre nerd and a douchebag jock?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys! I know it's been, like, 5 years since my last fic, but I want to try to get back into writing again! What better way to start off than my otp? It might be a little rough at first, but bear with me? Let me know what you think~

golgothasTerror [GT] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 17:16

GT: Greetings, ol chap!  
TT: Hello, Terror.  
TT: How are things?  
GT: They are a tad stressful. College tomorrow and everything.  
TT: You start tomorrow too?  
GT: Yeah.  
GT: How are things on your end?  
TT: They’re pretty good so far.  
GT: Thats good to hear.  
TT: I need to get going if I ever want to finish packing.  
TT: We’ll talk later?  
GT: Works for me.  
TT: Cool. Later, Terror.  
GT: See ya chum.

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering golgothasTerror [GT]

~~~

Jake English sighed as he logged off of his computer and took a look around his room. It was littered with half packed boxes that needed to be finished by tonight because he was leaving early tomorrow morning for college. Looking at all the boxes that have yet to be packed, he sighed again and rubbed his temples, he was never going to get this finished at the rate he was moving.

He had received a theatre scholarship at Sburb Community College and was kind of excited for it. It paid for mostly everything and financial aid covered the rest, so he could just go to college comfortably. He was excited about going as well, though, he didn’t know who his roommate was or even what he was on a scholarship for. Or if he even had one.

Jake slowly stood from his chair with a groan as if he was an old man. “Time to finish, I guess.” He slowly began to move about his room, packing his things the best he could.


	2. Moving In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stairs. So many stairs.

Jake English arrived at SCC at 10:00 the next morning.This was too early for Jake. Especially because of the fact that he had no sleep last night either and the drive here was rather boring. The college student hoped that he grabbed everything he would need to start the year off. He never finished packing, at least not really. He just sort of shoved everything into boxes and hoped for the best. His room at home was trashed now because of it. Not to worry though, things are going to be alright.

After checking in and obtaining his keys from the front desk at the dorms, he headed up the stairs. They weren’t allowed to use the elevators because they didn’t work? That was ridiculous. That means he was going to have to haul everything upstairs himself. That was going to be tedious. Good thing that he didn’t take anything this first round up or else he would be royally screwed. He wanted to obtain the feel of the room and the exact size of it before he started hauling up boxes.

When he walked up to his room, holy shit five flights of stairs is god awful, it looked like someone was already completely moved into the other side. It was covered in various shades of dark blue, purple, and black. He wondered just what his roommate was like. It was pretty organized and on the bed sat a white stuffed animal. Was that a seahorse? He didn’t know and his roommate wasn’t around to ask. Oh well.

The size of the room was pretty decent and he started to plan what he wanted to do to his room in his head. The school already came with a closet, a dresser, a desk, and a bed. That helped a lot.

After a few hours of moving boxes, (Five flights of stairs is so long. Why would they torture students like this?!) Jake finally finished moving everything up the stairs. He hadn’t even begun to start unpacking yet. As soon as he moved to do so, his stomach growled. Well, it looked like he would have to go and get lunch first. He checked his watch. 1:30. Was the cafeteria even opened? Maybe it was opened all day because the students were moving in. There was only one way to find out.

Thank God he was right. By the time he had reached the cafeteria, he thought he was going to wither away because he was so hungry. His mind had been so preoccupied by the boxes and the stairs, so many stairs, that he hadn’t even noticed how famished he had become. Did he eat breakfast this morning? He couldn’t even remember. That was a million stairs ago. Is this what his life had come to? Stairs? He heard a small voice echo in his head, _I warned you about the stairs, bro. I told you, dawg._ Where the hell did that come from? He didn’t have the energy to think about it.

The cafeteria was pretty full of people. It looked like some of students had already made friends and were sitting together. He hadn’t made any, so he was just going to sit at a table by himself probably. After getting his food, hamburger and fries, he looked for a place to sit. He found an empty table and took a seat. He began to scarf down his food in an instant.

“Hello?”

Jake looked up and saw a woman standing before him. She was obviously a student. On the plumper side, but she was adorable anyhow. She had short black hair and gorgeous blue eyes. She was also holding a plate and pointed to the seat at the table.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?”

“Sure! Go ahead! Company is always a pleasure!”

The girl smiled and sat down. “My name is Jane. Jane Crocker.” Jake smiled and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Jane, I’m Jake English,” he said as she took his hand and shook it. They both ate in silence for a moment before Jane asked what he was here for. He told her he was on a theatre scholarship. Turns out she was too. Then they hit it off. They talked about all the things they ended up having in common, what they liked doing, what they expected from this year, the likes.

They talked and ate for about an hour. “Well, Jake,” the female started, “It has been lovely talking with you and I am going to be looking forward to working with you this semester.” Jake nodded in agreement. “I have to finish unpacking, so I will see you later.” With that, Jane left and Jake bid his farewells. After a moment, he realized he should probably get going too. He still had to unpack.

When he arrived at his dorm, there was still no roommate. Where could he even be? It was none of his business anyway. He turned to his side of the room and let out a deep sigh. Time to see what was in these boxes.

After what felt like eternity, Jake was finally done with unpacking. He had brought everything he needed and some extra things. He did better at blind packing than he thought. His side of the room were different shades of greens with dabbles of orange. There were also a lot of posters, though, he wasn’t able to bring them all, he still had a bunch of them. They almost covered his entire side of the room.

He glanced at his watch. It was about six. Wow. That took way longer than he had intended. He thought about going to the cafe and then just decided to microwave some ramen noodles. He didn’t want to face the stairs again. His body shuddered at the thought of going up and down all the stairs again. He would rather not face them. Ramen it was.

After his dinner, he realized how exhausted he was. He climbed those stairs...he couldn’t count. He lost count after ten. So many. It was about nine and his roommate still hadn’t come back. He couldn’t help but worry about the stranger.

As if a distress signal was pushed out for everyone to hear, a very interesting person wandered into the room. He had black hair and a streak of purple. Was he just trying to be unique? He was also dressed like your typical hipster.

They stood there for a moment, frozen and staring at each other. Finally the new person spoke. “What are you staring at?” Wow. What a great way to start the year off. Jake shook off his frozen expression. “Sorry. You just startled me.” He walked over and stuck out his hand. “Jake. Jake English.” The male stood there, staring at him as if he were an alien before slowly shaking his hand. “Eridan. Eridan Ampora.”

After awkward introductions and short conversation, Jake found out that Eridan was also a theatre student. At least they had something in common. But that also meant he was going to be spending a lot of time with Eridan. He hoped that they wouldn’t get in a fight. That would be a disaster. Besides theatre, he was in the office all day trying to figure out financial aid because something had gone askew and they had to fix it before it was too late. Then he went and ate out at some place with his friend, Feferi?. The conversation didn’t last long because both boys were tired and had a long day and tomorrow was the first day of classes. So, they bid their goodnights and went to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stairs are no joke. When I was in the dorms last year, they didn't allow us to use the elevator. Hell, there wasn't even one in the girls' dorms. Though, we only had three floors (I was on the top) and the boys had five floors. And when Jake didn't pack until last minute? That was me. I still wasn't packed until the morning I had to leave. Even then, I forgot things and my parents had to come down the next weekend. I was a mess.


	3. First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the first day of classes.

Eight was way too early to get up for school, who the hell starts school on a Friday? Those thousands of stairs the day before killed him. Jake’s legs felt like they would buckle underneath him at any moment. How was he supposed to go down the stairs and walk to class? They were going to break and he was going to fall down the stairs and die. That’s not how Jake wanted to go. 

Jake’s first class was at nine, but he wanted to be nice and awake when he left. He also wanted to leave a little early just in case he had difficulty finding his class. He hadn’t had time to do that yesterday.

After a quick shower and getting ready as fast as he could, he noticed his roommate still asleep. He wondered when Eridan’s first class was. They hadn’t even talked about schedules in their short conversation yesterday. Oh well, that didn’t matter now. He glanced at his watch, he still had half an hour before class. Perfect. That would give him plenty of time to find his class, looking around the small campus, and pick out a nice seat.

Jake glanced at his schedule just to see what he had lined up for the day.

_9:00 am Speech_

_10:00 am English Comp 101_

_11:00 am Introduction to Sociology_

_1:00 pm Theatre Production (Friday Only)_

_6:00 pm Improv I (Monday Only)  
(Scholarship Class: Required)_

These were his MWF classes, so it wasn’t too bad. He could do that. 

Speech class was pretty easy. All he had to do was find a partner and tell the class about them. His partner was some sweaty guy named Equius. He was on the soccer team. His favorite color was blue and his best friend was a girl named Nepeta? At least that’s what he remembered. The most interesting part was that his name was related to the horse and kind of referenced from the boy who found a sexual attraction to horses? God, he felt sorry for that guy.

English was also relatively easy. They just had to write a paragraph telling the teacher what they did over the summer and what the most fun part was and why they thought it was so. There weren’t any partner opportunities, so he didn’t make any new friends there, just kept to himself.

Sociology. That was an interesting class. Jake was kind of early to the class, so he picked a random seat in the middle of the room. Not too close, not too far. A few other students came in, sitting away from him. Suddenly, there was this blonde student that came in. He had spiky hair and a hat on backwards. He was wearing a white polo. Wait...were those three collars?! Could this guy get anymore douchey? Oh yes, he could. He was wearing men’s sperrys and glasses indoors for crying out loud.

To top it all off, he sat right in front of Jake. Of all the seats he could’ve sat. He sat right in front of him. Jake groaned silently. He didn’t want to deal with this hot mess of a student in front of him. He just laid his head low and absentmindedly doodled in his notebook. The boy ahead of him was rather quiet. Until some other jocks came in. They sat around him and talked as loud as they could. Why did they feel the need to talk so damn loud? They’re right next to each other!!

Finally, the bell rang and the teacher quieted the other students down. He began roll call. Jake barely squeaked out a “here” when his name was called. He zoned back out and his attention was brought back when he heard “Dirk Strider.” Followed by, “Yo, yo, yo Stri-yuh-dah!” Which then was followed by some weird hand motions which THEN was followed by “Don’t forget it!” _Please tell me this guy isn’t for real._ The male now known as Dirk, sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest with a smug look on his face. _Holy shit. This guy is serious_ Jake felt like dying of embarrassment for him.

The rest of the class went by rather smoothly despite the start of it.

 

After that class, he had lunch. He saw Jane again and waved at her. She had already grabbed an empty table. He was rather glad that he had the same lunch opening as her. Grabbing his lunch, he headed over to Jane and sat with her. She began to speak as soon as he sat down. “I hope you don't mind if my roommate joins us,” she said, sheepishly. 

“Oh no! Not at all.” He chuckled and smiled at her. It was as if on cue, another woman with short black hair and incredibly pale skin. She almost looked like a vampire. The dark make-up didn’t help that case. She also seemed really tall. Maybe it was just because he was sitting down and she wasn’t. Yet. Who knows.

“Oh, Jake! This is Kanaya!” Jane smiled at him and her friend. “Kanaya, this is Jake! The one I was telling you about!” Kanaya inclined her head at him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jake.” Jake nodded. “You too.”

“Jake!” Another voice called him. Boy, he was popular today. He turned around and saw his roommate with someone. A girl who was short and plump, dark skin and hair. Really long hair. How long did it take her to brush all of that. She also looked very artsy. Oh! Maybe that was Feferi. Eridan sat down at the table with him, as did his friend. 

Introductions went around the table and when they were finished, something caught Jake’s eye across the room. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said. Jane looked at him confused. Jake began to explain, pointing at the blonde from his previous class. “That guy was in my class last hour,” he muttered. He then explained what happened in his last class. They all looked stunned.

Feferi was the first to speak. “Please tell me you’re joking.” Jake shook his head, causing everyone to groan. Then Jake caught eyes with the blonde. Which, he couldn’t really tell because he was wearing those stupid glasses with their dumb triangular shape. But, he could feel it? If that made any sense. It did to him at least. Anyway, what kind of douche wore glasses indoors? And that extra? God, this guy was too much for Jake to handle. He turned back to his peers as they discussed what everyone was up to for the rest of the day.

When lunch ended, Jake, Jane, Kanaya, and Eridan headed to their next class, Theatre Production. It was a required class for all theatre scholarships. Feferi headed off to soccer practice, bidding them adieu. They all headed towards the theatre, talking about different things they were all interested in. Jake learned that Jane enjoyed acting, like he did, Kanaya was all about costume design and making, and Eridan dabbled in a little bit of everything. He also seemed a little cocky, but whatever. He wasn’t going to piss on anyone’s dreams.

They all entered the theatre, sitting together. Jake was excited. He loved the theatre. He loved everything about it. Sure, he loved being on stage, but he was just excited to be backstage and help out. They watched as others filed in, some paired off, some sitting by themselves. Class began and an eccentric man came to the front and introduced himself as Lord English, which was interesting because he like to be called ‘Lord’ instead of the usual ‘Mr.’ He had everyone come up on the stage, one by one and introduce themselves. There was Jade, who was mostly into stage design and props, Rose, who was into make up, Sollux, who was mainly into tech stuff, Gamzee, who was all about improv, Karkat, who wrote and directed some of the plays, and then the other’s, he already knew. They seemed to have an interesting set of people as well.

The class was just introductions, so it wasn’t too stressful of a class. After everyone was done, Lord English dismissed the class, reminding everyone that there was an improv show Monday and no actual improv class. Gamzee seemed really excited about that one. He was gushing about how great it was going to be. It sounded like he was a sophomore with the way he was talking about it. 

Once class was over, everyone parted their ways. Jake and Eridan headed back to their room while everyone did the same. It was an exhausting first day and they all just wanted to relax and retire for the day, even though it was barely one-thirty. When the duo entered their dorm, they both collapsed on the couch they had in there. 

“God, I am so exhausted. And it’s only the first day.” Jake nodded, even though he was pretty sure he was up way before his roommate, he was too tired to even argue the fact. 

Next thing Jake knew, Eridan was nudging him to wake up. “English,” he said. Jake groaned and slowly opened his eyes. “What?” 

“It’s 5:45, wanna go to dinner?” Jake groaned again and nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.” He stood up, vertigo hitting him hard and sitting back down on the couch for a moment while he gathered himself. He stood up again, this time with Eridan’s assistance and all was good. He smiled at his roommate and they headed out to dinner.

They saw a couple theatre kids at dinner and sat with them. It was a pretty relaxing time and there was no sign of the blonde kid. Why was Jake even looking? He shook his head and turned his attention back to his friends.

After dinner, him and his roommate headed back to the room and they both passed out from exhaustion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is a real thing that happened. Dirk is based off a real guy that I had class with no joke.   
> lmao leave it to me to update this a literal year later. I found the document and decided it was probably time to update lmao  
> I'm in a better place now, so hopefully I can update and finish this by the end of the month.


	4. Improv Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's better than improv?

Monday came sooner than Jake thought it would. He spent all weekend looking for jobs so he could have a little cash on the side. He hardly saw his roommate, but never really asked where he had been or where he was going since Jake was just as busy. He figured he was probably larping or something. He didn’t know what the kid did in his freetime. Not yet, at least.

Classes were simple. They finished up introductions in speech. A small prompt in english. When sociology hit, it wasn’t too bad. Strider sat in front of him again and threw up some weird hand sign when the teacher did roll call. Then they broke up into partners. He was paired with another kid in his class, but he felt as if someone was staring at him the whole time, so he was incredibly uncomfortable. He didn’t want to look around and awkwardly made eye contact with someone.

When lunch came around, he sat with his usual crowd. About twenty minutes into lunch, however, he felt the eyes staring at him again. He looked up and saw Strider once more, staring in his direction. Jake shifted uncomfortably and turned his attention back to what his peers were talking about. 

“So, who all is going to the improv show tonight?” Jane asked the table.

“Well, Feferi and I thought it would be kind of fun to go.” Eridan said with a shrug.

“I want to go and hopefully see that enchanting blonde from our class Friday,” Kanaya said in a dreamlike fashion. A chuckle went around the table. Every since Rose introduced herself, Kanaya had been smitten.

They all made plans to meet at the theatre around nine, right when the doors open. They all wanted to sit in the front and to do that, you have to arrive early, duh. After lunch, they didn’t have prod together, so they parted ways. 

Jake had an interview at a museum at three, so he was just going to dick around until then. He had a couple of hours to kill. “Eridan, want to go downtown with me? I have an interview and need to get out of my room,” he said with a small laugh. The hipster shrugged. “Why not, maybe I can find some cool antiques.” Jake nodded and they headed downtown. It was only a couple of blocks, so it wasn’t too bad.

The basics were there; an abandoned theatre, a few coffee shops, thrift shops, a store that claimed it was going out of business, a nerd store, a few bars and pubs, etc. They didn’t really stop in anywhere, just looked at all of the different stores from the windows. Before Jake knew it, his watch beeped, signalling it was time for him to go to his interview. “Shit, time flew. You can either wait for me or ditch me,” he said to his roommate. Eridan shrugged. “I was thinking about checking out an antique store backaways. Text me when you’re done.” Jake nodded and they parted ways.

After an hour and a half, Jake exited the museum with a job. He was stoked to start working there. He was just doing mostly background work - monitoring kids tours, cleaning, set up, etc. He called Eridan to see where he was and he was still in the same store as he said he would be in.

Once Jake arrived, Eridan waved him over. “Look at this!” he said, pointing at something in a display case. It looked like some sort of fancy ring. “Don’t you have enough-”

“Jake, this is an antique, rare…” Eridan’s words fell on deaf ears as Jake thought he saw something from the front store window. A few seconds later a loud couple of people came in. That’s right. Strider. And someone else, who looked a lot like him. A brother, maybe? They were being rather loud and annoying. 

A lady comes out from the back of the store. “Oh, no you don’t, you get right on out of here! I don’t tolerate loud noises in this place.” One of the guys scoffed. “Chasing out perfectly good customers? Fine. We didn’t want to buy anything anyway.” One of them knocked something over and Dirk stood there, staring at Jake. The dorky teen gulped and clenched his jaw. The two jocks left.

“Sorry about that. The older one has been coming in here for a while now, making a racket of the place. But it’s usually when Sollux is here.” The woman shook her head, confused. “I don’t know what brought them here this time.” She turned to them. “I’m Aradia and my father owns this store. Let me know if you need anything!” She skipped to the back room and giggled. 

Eridan and Jake stood there. “Dude, what the fuck was that?” Jake shook his head. He had no idea. “Did they purposefully come in here?” Jake shrugged. “You better keep a look out.” Finally, Jake looked back at Eridan and nodded. “Uh. Yeah.” He shook his head and sighed. “We should probably head back and get ready for the improv show? Dinner is in about an hour anyway.”

When they arrived at the caf, their usual group was there. Once Eridan and Jake sat down, Eri immediately began to tell them what happened in the store. Jane gasped. “Oh my gosh, Jake! What if he’s going to kill you?” Jake rolled his eyes. “He’s not going to kill me. Maybe he was just trying to remember where he knows me from.” Jake shook it off, everyone was reading too into it. It was probably nothing. Of course, that’s what Jake has been telling himself.

The subject quickly changed about the way the evening events were going to transpire. It seemed that after dinner, everyone was going to clean up and then meet at the theatre. Luckily, the campus wasn’t huge, so everything was within walking distance.

After dinner, they all went to clean up for the show. It was common courtesy to look at least a little nice when going to see a show of any kind at a theatre. Eridan and Jake took turns showering and once they were done, they started to head for the theatre. On the way there, it seemed there was a racket on the way to the theatre. “Vote Strider for president!” There were obnoxious laughs and Dirk was randomly shaking people’s hands. When Eridan and Jake started to pass, they tried to go under the radar, but Dirk walked over and shook their hands. “Hello, Dirk Strider here and I think you should vote for me for the next president.” His friends laughed loudly behind him. One of them was the kid from earlier. Dirk quickly moved on, leaving Jake confused. He looked at his hand where the other had touched him and then looked at Eridan. “What the fuck?” he asked. Eridan shrugged. “It’s best not to ask.” They shook their heads and headed on their way.

They met up with their friends from earlier and sat down in the front. They were on their phones to pass the time, joking and laughing about various things. Then the opening song started and everyone was getting pumped. The improv kids came out and there Gamzee was. He looked so excited...and stoned. Come to think of it, he also looked stoned in class. Was this his personality? Whatever. That didn’t matter right now. 

The first thing the crew asked for was a theme. So many things were shouted out. “Wild West!”, “Horror Movie!”, and “Porn!” The guy at the mic laughed. He looked directly at the group who said it and said into the mic, “Of course, leave it to the baseball team to make it about porn because they like nothing more than to see two dude pretending to have sex with each other.” The theatre roared with laughter and Jake looked back, seeing the kid’s earlier’s face turn a dark red under his sunglasses, which, why was he wearing those here? THat didn’t make any sense.

“Haa! Gaaaaay!” Someone called from the other side of the room and Jake looked. It was Dirk. “Oh, football boys aren’t any better. They’re usually the ones who go for the BDSM though.” More laughter. Dirk’s face turned bright red as well and he tried to laugh it off. Then he looked in Jake’s general direction, he was wearing glasses though, so Jake didn’t know if he actually looking at him, but the feeling that came over him? He turned back around, nervously laughing as he sat there.

The show continued on as they group did various games and skits. It was actually really funny and Gamzee seemed like a natural. He was a sophomore, so he knew how it all worked, so it made sense. He wondered who all else would join the improv crew. Jake kind of wanted to do it himself.

By the time the show was over, everyone was wheezing or crying or both. They stood to leave, congratulating Gamzee when they came off stage. “Why thanks, man. It’s awesome that you dudes came,” he said in his usual, lazy drawl. A kid came running down the aisle. He had a mohawk and he was very small. He jumped into Gamzee’s arms. “You did amazing!!” he exclaimed. Gamzee stumbled back a little and laughed. “Hey, little dude. I’m glad you liked it.” After a moment, it seemed like the kid realized what he did and his face turned red. He jumped off of Gamzee and blushed deeply. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it, T. All is good.” As if Gamzee just remembered everyone was there, he smiled. “Oh yeah! Where are my muthafuckin’ manners? This is Tavbabe.” Tavros’ face headed to a bright red color. “He’s here on an honor’s scholarship. Gonna get himself a nice engineering degree.” Tavros nodded shyly. Jake smiled. “Well, it’s nice to meet you Tavros!” He shook hands with the kid and then noticed that it was nearly eleven and he still had class. “Yikes! I need to get going! I will see you later!” He waved at the two and started to head out with his friends. 

When they arrived at the dorms, Jake collapsed on his bed. He decided to check his pesterchum because he realized he hadn’t done that in a couple of days and TT was probably wondering where he was. He noticed there were a couple of unread chats from yesterday and felt bad. He began typing:

golgothasTerror [GT] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 23:15:

GT: Greetings, old chap!  
TT: Are you always going to use that as your greeting?  
GT: I can switch it up if you want to?  
TT: Nah, it’s good. You just always use it.  
TT: It has become you.  
GT: Well, what can i say? I am a simple man.  
TT: Terror, you really are something else.  
GT: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  
TT: You can guess.  
TT: Well, I’m off to bed for the night. College has be worn out.  
TT: Talk to you another time.  
GT: Tata!

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering golgothasTerror [GT].

A few minutes later, Jake was out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the whole "Vote for Strider" bit? A real thing that happened to me. Crazy, right?


End file.
